EU anti-fraud office probes human-rights agency

The European anti-fraud office OLAF confirmed Wednesday it is investigating an EU-funded human rights agency and that a recent raid on the agency’s Austrian headquarters was linked to the probe.

Responding to an inquiry from POLITICO, OLAF acting spokesperson Silvana Enculescu said investigators “carried out a recent inspection on the Fundamental Rights Agency in the course of an investigation” and had done so “with the full cooperation of [agency] management.”

However, Enculescu said she could not answer specific questions about an ongoing investigation or the recent raid and declined to clarify what OLAF officials had been looking for. OLAF investigates fraud against the EU budget, corruption and misconduct within the European institutions.

According to witnesses, OLAF investigators appeared at the Vienna-based agency late on January 18 and remained there until the following morning, returning several times throughout the week.

A spokesperson for the Fundamental Rights Agency confirmed OLAF had “visited” the agency last week but said OLAF “carries out such visits at all EU institutions in the course of its task” and there was nothing unusual about it.

The director of the agency, Michael O’Flaherty, discussed the raid at a staff meeting last Thursday. “In the interests of transparency [the director] simply informed staff that [the visit] had taken place,” the spokesperson said, declining to answer further questions because a staff meeting “isn’t for discussion with the media.”

On the same day O’Flaherty had a meeting with the chair of the agency’s management board, Frauke Lisa Seidensticker; he also had what an internal email listed as a “video conference” with Paul Nemitz, a Commission official who is a member of the agency’s executive board.

The Fundamental Rights Agency has been at the center of a number of staffing controversies, in which officials and temporary contractors have accused senior managers of lashing out at whistle-blowers for reporting accounting irregularities — what EU court documents have called an “atmosphere of fear.”

Documents seen by POLITICO reveal OLAF is currently investigating allegations the Fundamental Rights Agency leaked a whistle-blower’s confidential information. But OLAF would not confirm whether last month’s raid was linked to this particular investigation.

An earlier OLAF investigation into the agency, which uncovered accounting irregularities, concluded in 2009 without recommending any foll0w-up. A whistle-blower’s reporting of those irregularities led an EU court to rule against the Fundamental Rights Agency; another whistle-blower’s reporting of the same irregularities prompted a 2013 finding of maladministration by the European Ombudsman.

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Halway

The FRA is suggesting that there was nothing unusual with OLAF raid…..because OLAF “carries out such visits at all EU institutions in the course of its task”.

The FRA statement sounds offending if not outrageous. It cast a stain on all EU institutions by suggesting that all EU institutions are performing their activities in such modalities that OLAF must raid their premises. OLAF investigates fraud against the EU budget, corruption and misconduct within the European institutions. Should the taxpayers understand that all EU institutions are suspect of fraud against the EU budget, corruption and misconduct ? This is what FRA is suggesting. Could the politico editor ask FRA to apology for the offending statement?

“Church confirms Michael O’Flaherty remains a priest of the Diocese of Galway
BY DEACON NICK DONNELLY, ON JULY 23RD, 2011
The Belfast Telegraph carries a report that the Catholic Church has confirmed that Michael O’Flaherty, new radical gay activity head of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, remains a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Galway.

‘The new head of Northern Ireland’s human rights watchdog, Michael O’Flaherty, is an ordained priest in the diocese of Galway, the Catholic Church has confirmed. Fr O’Flaherty, currently Professor of Human Rights at the University of Nottingham, has not practised as a priest for several years. He studied Theology at the Pontifical University in Rome and has never applied to be laicised, or removed from priestly office.’

Protect the Pope comment: The Holy See has made it abundantly clear that a bishop must laicise a priest who has left the ministry for five consecutive years or has no intention of returning to ministry. The fact that Fr Michael O’Flaherty has not been laicised is now a cause of grave scandal due to his prominent, public advocacy of radical homosexual rights.

‘A bishop can initiate the process in the case of a priest who has left the ministry for five consecutive years or more with no intention of returning to the ministry’ Cardinal Hummes.